Company Profile of Sprint Nextel Corporation

Discuss Company Profile of Sprint Nextel Corporation within the Company Profiles & News !! forums, part of the Mirror View - Ebooks Links & Miscellenous Reading Material category; Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) is a telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, ...

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) is a telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 51 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility.
Sprint is a global Internet carrier and makes up a portion of the Internet backbone. In the United States, the company is the third largest long distance provider and also owns a majority of Clearwire, which operates the largest wireless broadband network.
The company was renamed in 2005 with the purchase of Nextel Communications by Sprint Corporation. The company continues to operate using two separate wireless network technologies, CDMA and iDEN (for Nextel and some Boost Mobile subscribers). In 2006, the company spun off its local landline telephone business, naming it Embarq (which was subsequently acquired by CenturyTel). In 2009, Sprint reached an agreement to outsource management of its wireless networks to Ericsson.
Sprint Nextel launched its first WiMAX wireless card on December 21, 2008 (the Franklin Wireless u300 broadband card), and the first WiMAX phone available in the United States (the HTC Evo 4G) on June 4, 2010, utilizing its WiMAX technology from Clearwire Corp. A recent Consumer Reports survey tied Sprint with perennial front-runner Verizon Wireless in terms of customer satisfaction, a big improvement over previous years.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint), incorporated in 1938, is a holding company, with its operations primarily conducted by its subsidiaries. Sprint is a communications company offering a range of wireless and wireline communications products and services for individual consumers, businesses, government subscribers and resellers. The Company operates in two business segments: Wireless and Wireline. Sprint offers wireless and wireline voice and data transmission services to subscribers in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the United State’s Virgin Islands.
The Company’s retail brands include Sprint, Nextel, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Assurance Wireless and Common Cents SM on networks that utilize third generation (3G) code division multiple access (CDMA), national push-to-talk integrated digital enhanced network (iDEN), or Internet protocol (IP) technologies. It also offers fourth generation (4G) services utilizing worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) technology through its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wholesale relationship with Clearwire Corporation and its subsidiary Clearwire Communications LLC (Clearwire). As of December 31 2010, Sprint 4G was available in 71 markets reaching more than 110 million people.
Wireless
Sprint provides wireless services on its 3G network and its national push-to-talk network and 4G services, through the Company’s MVNO wholesale relationship with Clearwire. It offers wireless services on a postpaid and prepaid payment basis to retail subscribers and also on a wholesale basis, which includes the sale of wireless services to resellers and affiliates. Sprint supports the open development of applications and content on its network platforms. It also enables a range of third-party providers, location-based services and business and consumer product providers through its open-device initiative, which includes machine-to-machine initiative. The machine-to-machine initiative incorporates selling, marketing, product development and operations resources to address a range of products and services, including remote monitoring, telematics, in-vehicle devices, e-readers, specialized medical devices and other original equipment manufacturer devices.
The Company’s wireless data communications services include mobile productivity applications, such as Internet access and messaging and e-mail services; wireless photo and video offerings, and location-based capabilities, including asset and fleet management, dispatch services and navigation tools, and mobile entertainment applications. It also provides the ability to view live television, listen to Sirius-XM satellite radio, download and listen to music from its Sprint Music Store, which is a music catalog with thousands of songs from virtually every music genre, and game play with full-color graphics and polyphonic and real-music sounds all from a wireless handset. Wireless voice communications services include basic local and long distance wireless voice services, as well as voicemail, call waiting, three-way calling, caller identification, directory assistance and call forwarding.
Sprint offers Nextel Direct Connect push-to-talk services on its iDEN network. The Company also provides voice and data services to areas in countries outside the United States, through roaming arrangements. It offers customized design, development, implementation and support services for wireless services provided to companies and government agencies. Its services are provided using a range of multi-functional devices, such as smartphones, mobile broadband devices, such as aircards and embedded tablets, and laptops manufactured by various suppliers for use with its voice and data services. The Company sells accessories, such as carrying cases, hands-free devices, batteries, battery chargers and other items to subscribers. It also sells devices and accessories to agents and other third-party distributors for resale.
Sprint delivers wireless services to subscribers primarily through the ownership of its CDMA and iDEN networks or as a reseller of 4G services. Its CDMA network uses a single frequency band and a digital spread-spectrum wireless technology. The Company provides nationwide service through a combination of operating its own digital network in the United States metropolitan areas and rural connecting routes, affiliations under commercial arrangements with third-party affiliates (Affiliates) and roaming on other providers' networks. Sprint’s iDEN network is an all-digital packet data network-based on iDEN wireless technology provided by Motorola Mobility, Inc. and Motorola Solutions, Inc. (Motorola).
The Company competes with AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Metro PCS Communications, Inc., Leap Wireless International, Inc. and TracFone Wireless.
Wireline
The Company provides a range of wireline voice and data communications services to other communications companies, and business and consumer subscribers. In addition, Sprint provides voice, data and IP communication services to its Wireless segment and IP and other services to cable multiple system operators (MSOs) that resell its local and long distance services. Sprint also provides services to use its back office systems and network assets in support of their telephone service provided over cable facilities primarily to residential subscribers.
Sprint’s services and products include domestic and international data communications using various protocols, such as multiprotocol label switching technologies (MPLS), IP, managed network services, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), and session initiated protocol (SIP) and voice services. Its IP services can also be combined with wireless services. Such services include its Sprint Mobile Integration service, which enables a wireless handset to operate as part of a subscriber's wireline voice network, and its DataLinkSM service, which uses its wireless networks to connect a subscriber location into their primarily wireline wide-area IP/MPLS data network. Sprint also provides wholesale voice local and long distance services to cable MSOs, which they offer as part of their bundled service offerings, as well as voice and data services for their enterprise use. Sprint’s Wireline segment markets and sells its services primarily through direct sales representatives.
The Company competes with AT&T, Verizon Communications, Qwest Communications, Level 3 Communications, Inc.

The core of the present day Sprint-Nextel Corporation was founded in 1899 by Cleyson Leroy Brown and Carlos Florendo, Jr., and Mary Dawn Dillo under the name of the Dillo-Brown Telephone Company, in the small town of Abilene, Kansas. Brown Telephone was a landline telephone company operating as a competitor to the Bell System.
In 1938, after emerging from bankruptcy, Brown changed its name to United Utilities. The company grew steadily through acquisitions and, in 1972, changed its name to United Telecommunications, at which time it provided local telephone service in many areas of the Midwest and South. United Telecom also operated many other types of business.
In 1980 United Telecom launched a national X.25 data service, Uninet. To enter the long-distance voice market, United Telecom acquired ISACOMM in 1981 and US Telephone in 1984. In 1983 United Telecom began offering cellular telephone services in their territories under the brand name Telespectrum.

Southern Pacific Communications Company (SPC), a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad, began providing long-distance telephone service after the Execunet II decision late in 1978. SPC was headquartered in Burlingame, California, where Sprint still maintains a technology laboratory, on Adrian Court.
The Railroad had an extensive microwave communications system along its rights of way used for internal communications; later, after the Execunet II decision, they expanded by laying fiber optic cables along the same rights of way. In 1972 they began selling surplus capacity on that system to corporations for use as private lines, thereby circumventing AT&T's then-monopoly on public telephony. Prior attempts at offering long distance voice services had not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), although a fax service (called SpeedFAX) was permitted.
As mentioned, SPC was only permitted to provide private lines, not switched services. When MCI Communications released Execunet, SPC took the FCC to court to get the right to offer switched services, and succeeded (the "Execunet II" decision). They decided they needed a new name to differentiate the switched voice service from SpeedFAX, and ran an internal contest to select one. The winning entry was "Sprint"; an acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Intelligent Network of Telecommunications.
The Sprint service was first marketed to six metropolitan areas: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim, California. The switches were located in Los Angeles and New York. A customer was required to have a private line connection to one of these switches in order to use the service, and paid an access fee per private line. The customer was then billed at 2.6 cents per tenth of a minute increment.
In 1982 SPC became part of GTE under the name GTE Sprint. GTE had previously acquired a national X.25 provider, Telenet, in 1979.